Breaking Down the ‘Wellness-Industrial Complex,’ an Episode at a Time

The “Maintenance Phase” podcast interrogates the science behind health food trends, fad diets and popular nutritional advice.

Aubrey Gordon collects vintage diet books. She has amassed almost 100 titles, including the 1973 volume “Slimming Down,” written by Johnny Carson’s sidekick, Ed McMahon. “Slimming Down” — which featured chapter titles like “The Breadstick Conspiracy” and “Two Martinis Into Connecticut” — is the book that began Ms. Gordon’s collection. And while the idea of mixology as nutritional strategy might seem absurd to a reader today, Ms. Gordon said that so much of the current thinking about what is now known as wellness is just as “hilarious and wacky.” On the podcast “Maintenance Phase,” named after the concept of sustaining post-diet weight loss, Ms. Gordon and the journalist Michael Hobbes spend each episode exploring what they call the “wellness-industrial complex,” debunking health fads and nutritional advice.